Ensemble ACJW @ Zankel Music Center, 10/18/13

SARATOGA SPRINGS – Though it was the Ensemble ACJW’s thirteenth semi-annual appearance at Skidmore College on Friday night, each encounter with the group is something new and fresh.

Besides the fact that different performers seem to show up every time, the programs also always offer a premiere. Maybe they consider upstate a safe testing ground, before giving the new pieces a Big Manhattan Debut. No matter. We’re happy for the first hearings.

The new work, Andy Akiho’s “Speaking Tree,” was ambitious, varied and intriguing. The composer says he received inspiration by napping beside a tree on the Princeton campus. It must have had a lot to say, as the piece visits a variety of styles and textures. While there were five brass and five strings involved, the percussion was the most captivating and imaginative, starting with tree branches rubbed gently on the head of the bass drum. Later, percussionist Ian Sullivan executed a tricky duet between rattling sticks and toy piano. The strings had their moments in minimalist cannons, and the brass gave weighty snarls. The sudden ending suggested that Akiho and his tree friend could have kept their dialogue going far longer than the piece’s duration of 12 or so minutes.

Another new element was the concert’s emphasis on brass. Three tiny fanfares by young composers gave some color and levity to the proceedings. But it was Raymond Mase’s arrangements of four Monteverdi madrigals for brass quintet that provided the most satisfying music of the night. Mase wisely let his forebear’s music speak for itself. Each madrigal showed the same exquisite craftsmanship, yet each had a unique character, from sacred to slightly seductive. The playing was terrific — that’s another hallmark of the ACJW — and showed off the Ladd Concert Hall to fine effect as well.

Yet after intermission, one had to question whether it was the acoustics or the performance or a bit of both that made for such a lackluster reading of Dvorak’s String Quintet in G Major, Op. 77. From the opening strains, it felt like the strings were playing with their mutes on. There just wasn’t any ring in the upper register. The composer’s addition of bass to the normal string quartet forces should actually have broadened the entire spectrum of sound. Matters of ensemble were fine, but the folk tunes never quiet sprang to full life either, even if all those heavy downbeats in the Intermezzo were delivered with apparent oomph. The best parts were the clean solo lines from bassist Tony Flynt.

Joseph Dalton is a freelance writer in Troy and can be reached at Dalton@HudsonSounds.org.